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Barnes & Noble Unveils Newest Nook

By Julie Bosman May 24, 2011 1:31 pmMay 24, 2011 1:31 pm

Barnes & Noble introduced its third e-reader in less than two years on Tuesday, a slimmer, lighter black-and-white touch-screen model that the retailer said would help propel its growth in the e-book market.

Mary Altaffer/Associated PressWilliam Lynch, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble, unveiled the latest version of the Nook on Tuesday.

At a flashy news conference at its Union Square store in Manhattan, Barnes & Noble executives unveiled the latest version of the Nook, which they called “The Simple Touch Reader.” The e-reader, priced at $139, will go on sale in Barnes & Noble stores immediately and will begin shipping on June 10 for orders on BN.com. It replaces the original black-and-white Nook, which was introduced in October 2009.

The long-expected announcement coincided with the beginning of BookExpo America, an annual trade convention that draws thousands of booksellers, publishers and authors, and scooped up some of the attention that would otherwise be centered on the vast exhibit halls at the Jacob Javits Center in Midtown Manhattan.

Barnes & Noble did its best to heighten the theater of the event, surrounding the seated news media with dozens of employees dressed in black, who loudly applauded, hooted and whistled throughout the presentation by William Lynch, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble.

Many of the employees headed for the exits immediately after the event.

Mr. Lynch, standing on stage with a massive screen behind him, compared the new Nook to the latest version of Amazon’s Kindle, saying that the touchscreen Nook is simpler to use than its competitor. He promised that it is smaller, more comfortable to use and unburdened by a keyboard and excessive numbers of buttons on the device.

And Mr. Lynch touted Barnes & Noble’s gains in market share in the e-book space, which he said currently exceeds 25 percent of the market — a figure that several large publishers said was accurate. The color version of the Nook has also proved a popular device for women’s magazines.

“In a relatively short period of time, Barnes & Noble has evolved into a formidable technology and digital media company,” he said. “As we continue to evolve, retailing remains deep in our DNA. Few companies have this combination of capabilities at the scale that we do, and we think it’s our winning formula.”

Publishers have quietly cheered Barnes & Noble’s progress in the e-book space, in the hopes that the retailer will become a more robust competitor to Amazon. Mr. Lynch did not discuss the bid last week by Liberty Media to buy Barnes & Noble, which put itself up for sale last year.

The new Nook will squeeze into a crowded marketplace of e-readers, which is currently dominated by the Amazon Kindle, the e-reader that was first introduced in 2007.

Amazon’s Kindle sells for $139 and the company also offers a $114 Kindle that shows advertising at the bottom of the home screen and on screen savers. Barnes & Noble sells its Nook Color for $249.
Kobo, whose e-reader is for sale in Borders stores, made another push into the market on Monday, introducing a new version with a touchscreen for $129.99.

Waiting for the event to begin on Tuesday, Leonard Riggio, the chairman of Barnes & Noble, said that he believed that e-readers could spread to remote corners of the world and introduce books to people who would otherwise not have access.

“You could have a young child in the Congo reading,” he said, holding an imaginary e-reader in his hands. “With all the world’s great literature. That’s very liberating.”